“She’s hungry,” Grace explained as she put her in her highchair with some food on the tray.

“Are you hungry, Shea?”

“I can always eat,” Shea answered as she placed a sandwich and chips in front of him. After a lot of coaxing, she finally got Ryan to sit down and eat. Grace sat across from Shea and took a bite out of her sandwich before giving him a pointed look.

“So, what’s up?”

No reason beating around the bush.

“I think I messed up with Elli.”

A lot of emotions went over Grace’s face: anger, surprise, concern, and then finally worry.

“What? What happened?”

“She came over Sunday. We had a great time, until we started making out and then-”

“Unky Shea, what’s making out?” Ryan asked. Both he and Grace looked over at Ryan; he was looking up at them with his big, blue, innocent eyes.

“Um,” Shea stuttered.

“I’ll tell you when you’re fourteen,” Grace said, and she looked up at Shea.

“Keep going, but spell the words that we don’t want young ears to hear.”

“Okay,” he laughed, “Well, I went to put my hand up her s-h-i-r-t,” Grace nodding approvingly, “and she freaked. Ran out crying. I don’t know what to do. She won’t answer my calls. She does respond to my texts, but they are like ‘I’ll call you,’ but she never does. It’s been two days, Grace. Tomorrow is opening night, and I’m freaking out! And I never freak out!”

“Okay, so you were f-o-o-l-i-n-g around and then when you tried to c-o-p a feel, she ran out like a bat out of h-e-l-l?”

“Yes, and she was crying.”

“Hmm, I don’t know why she would do that.”

“I don’t either! That’s why I came to you!”

“Jeez, calm down, let me think,” Grace pleaded as she put her chin on her hand and thought. “Has she had any kids?”

Shea thought for a moment.

“Um, no I don’t think so. She said she wants kids in the future.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Okay, has she been married?”

“I don’t know, it hasn’t come up.”

“What the h-e-l-l do you all talk about?”

“Whatever comes up.”

“Don’t you think you should have the exes talk?”

“Yeah, but it just hasn’t came up.”

“You’re hopeless. If she won’t answer your calls, then go to her. If you’re in her face, where can she go?”

This was a bad idea.

Shea should have thought this out more instead of acting on impulse. It was close to 8:00 and Elli still wasn’t home. Shea had called Jakob to ask Harper what Elli’s schedule was like. She should have been home by 7:00, since all she had was a birthday party at 3:00, but she still wasn’t home. He was sitting in his truck because when he was sitting on the porch, Elli’s dog was barking its ass off and he felt bad, so he went back to his truck. He felt like he was already in hot water with Elli and he didn’t want to piss her off anymore by giving her dog a heart attack.

Shea leaned back in his seat, moving his arm around. Jakob had slammed him into the boards earlier that day and he was feeling it now. He checked his phone and saw that it was almost 8:30, and decided to give her until 9:00. If she wasn’t there, he would leave the roses he had gotten for her on the doorstep and drive home. He had to get up early for practice, and he had all kinds of PR before the game tomorrow.

So he waited.

And waited and waited.

At 9:00, he couldn’t bring himself to leave. 10:00 rolled around, and he still sat in his truck and played Angry Birds on his phone. He missed her a lot and if he was going to be a little tired at practice tomorrow, then that was a small price to pay to be able to see her tonight.

Shea was soon becoming angrier with every minute that passed. Where the hell was she? It was close to 11:00 and she still wasn’t home. Was she out with another guy? Did she replace him that fast? He tried to distract himself with his game, but it wasn’t working. He found himself looking up, then to the clock, back to the road, then her driveway, just in case he missed the truck driving by him. He finally spotted her truck at 11:00. She pulled into the driveway and he jumped out, roses in hand.

Shea didn’t think she saw him; she was fully out of the car, camera in hand, and still didn’t say anything as he walked up towards her. She looked beautiful. Her hair was up in a twisty style, and she had on a pretty little blue dress that had yellow flowers all over it. She wore some sexy little heels, and his mouth watered at the sight. Elli let out a little scream, covering her heart with her hand when she turned.

“Shea!”

“Hey, Elli,” he answered shyly.

He didn’t know why he was shy, shy wasn’t even in his vocabulary, but there he was. It was disgusting, really.

“These are for you,” he said quietly as he held out the roses.

She looked down at them, then back at him, before taking them.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“I haven’t heard from you.”

“I told you I was really busy, you didn’t have to drive all the way out here.”

“I wanted to see you,” he answered, looking down at her. But she wouldn’t look at him, and it was driving him crazy being this close to her and not kissing her. He took a step closer to her and she looked up at him.